The Odessa Civic Freedom Residency

Applications are now open for the Odessa Civic Freedom Residency for international scholars, writers, and artists, (broadly defined).
Residents will spend up to one month in Odessa, between April and October 2026, engaging with the city’s cultural life and intellectual community at a moment of historic urgency.



Deadline: 27 February 2026

From Ukraine’s humanist, cosmopolitan port of Odessa, the civic-intellectual collective Ukrainian Cosmopolis brings together those who refuse censorship and resist the comforts of orthodoxy — writers, scholars, and creators who hold fast to intellectual freedom and civic courage as public duties.
We are the only organisation in Ukraine openly confronting the weaponisation of culture — a core tactic of Russia’s hybrid war, designed to fracture the country from within. We stand firmly against the culture-war politics that enable this strategy.
Through public debates, residencies, and civic initiatives, we cultivate Ukraine’s civic resilience to hybrid warfare and polarising radicalism — the resilience necessary not only for its democratic, European future, but for its ability to survive.
We do not speak for Ukraine; we cultivate public spaces for open, responsible disagreement.